“I have heard many people say how wonderful Wigan and Leigh Hospice is and have, in the past, raised money to support it myself, but I don't think I ever thought our family would become so reliant on the services of the hospice. All I can say is please, please support, in any way you can, this most wonderful place.”Linda Owen, wife of a hospice patient

Inpatient care

Wigan & Leigh Hospice provides specialist end-of-life care, and a wide range of support services for more than 1,000 people with a life-limiting illness each and every year.

Patients are admitted to Wigan & Leigh Hospice following a
referral from a GP, hospital or specialist community nurse - we
don't accept patients directly.

Inpatient care

Patients are generally admitted to the hospice for one or more
of the following reasons:

symptom control - where they've been unable to have their
symptoms managed by other means.

transitional care - perhaps when moving from hospital back to
home or from hospital to a nursing home.

End-of-life care

Because we have limited facilities and our focus of care is the
patient with specialist needs, we are unable to provide respite
care.

The admission process

All admission requests come via a GP, hospital consultant or
hospital or community specialist nurse. Our 14 beds are almost
always full, so we operate a proactively managed waiting list,
which is reviewed daily. Decisions about admissions are made on the
basis of individual need. As you can imagine, our services are very
much in demand and we strive to prioritise those with the greatest
need.

The duration of care

The length of admission will depend on the needs of the
individual patient. We are unable to offer long-term care on
the Inpatient Unit and patients will be discharged if their needs
can be met in another setting.

However, that's not the end of our care - our team of specialist
nurses will continue to provide support to the patient, either at
home or in a nursing home. In addition, patients can access other
hospice services when required, such as counselling or
complementary therapy services. In this way, when people leave, our
care follows them - a great deal of our care is provided outside of
the hospice building itself.